the frack thread

[emordnilap]

Coming your way:

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/resources/images/2583595/

[mobbsey]

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/resources/images/2583595/

Yeah, lot of crap that map. Most of the N. Yorks licences are for onshore oil and gas production, and a number have been producing for a few years.

Main interest is for fracking/coal-bed methane is for Lancashire, Carlisle/Border, South Wales, Scottish Midland Valley, Mendips and some parts of the East Midlands. Sussex is primarily oil production, extending the existing production fields already in operation in Hampshire/Dorset.

Interestingly though we've just had the first ONSHORE licence application for underground coal gasification about twenty miles up the road from me -- http://www.fraw.org.uk/ideas/index.shtml#ucg. That makes fracking look benign!

[biffvernon]

www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/resources/images/2583595/

Yeah, lot of crap that map. Most of the N. Yorks licences are for onshore oil and gas production, and a number have been producing for a few years.

Main interest is for fracking/coal-bed methane is for Lancashire, Carlisle/Border, South Wales, Scottish Midland Valley, Mendips and some parts of the East Midlands. Sussex is primarily oil production, extending the existing production fields already in operation in Hampshire/Dorset.

Oh no, not so! In Lincolnshire the planning permissions granted at Laughton and applied for at Biscathorpe are for conventional oil BUT the company (Egdon Resources) is interested in the gas-rich shale of the Bowland-Hodder Formation that underlies these sites and is the probable source rock for the oil and gas that has been produced hereabouts for many years. The North Somercotes Prospect is for gas from the shale only as there is no overlying reservoir rock to be exploited first.

And it's under my house!

I've just written another episode to my blog on Oil Gas and Fracking in Lincolnshire. Part 5 is Why the campaign against fracking is vital: http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

[emordnilap]

It's a fascinating conundrum, isn't it - burn more oil and the price goes higher, enabling the dirtiest fossil fuel extraction. Burn less and the price drops, enabling poorer people to buy it and ensuring the shortfall gets burnt anyway.

Either way, there's no excuse to burn more than your 'fair' share, which is actually very little, fairly close to zero really.

[biffvernon]

Either way, the only solution is on the supply side. We have to make it difficult to get stuff from underground.

[emordnilap]

fracking gives nature a boost

That study involved planting PVC pipes into six plots of North Carolina’s 7,000-acre Duke Forest. Carbon dioxide was blown through holes in the pipes, which stretched to the tops of the tree canopies, while another control group of pipes vented normal air. Of all the plants, poison ivy was the hands-down winner, said Jacqueline Mohan, assistant professor at the University of Georgia and the study’s lead author.

“It was the most responsive species to the higher carbon dioxide in the atmosphere,” Mohan said. “The average little tree that I measured grew 8 percent faster. And poison ivy grew 149 percent faster than it would have under ambient, normal carbon dioxide conditions.”

[biffvernon]

More poison ivy. That might make Americans think twice about the benefits of increased CO2

[biffvernon]

Treasury officials have met with representatives of the shale gas industry to discuss the introduction of tax breaks at the rate of around twice a month since Chancellor George Osborne announced his intention to provide the nascent fossil fuel industry with one of the most generous tax regimes in the world.
The revelation came in response to a freedom of information request from Friends of the Earth, although the Treasury failed to respond to accompanying requests on the nature of the meetings and the "statistical analysis" it has used to justify the government's proposal to introduce "generous" tax breaks for the industry.
In response to the request the Treasury confirmed that between October last year and the end of June this year Treasury officials and shale gas industry representatives met 19 times. Neither the industry representatives nor the officials at the meetings were named in the disclosure and no information was provided on the nature of the discussions.
The Treasury said the information was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act as it relates to the formulation and development of government policy, could prejudice commercial interests and may be intended for future publication.

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/22 ... tax-breaks

[emordnilap]

Great. We can look forward to secret meetings between government and anti-GMO people, Frack Off reps or Greenpeace perhaps?

[JohnB]

Great. We can look forward to secret meetings between government and anti-GMO people, Frack Off reps or Greenpeace perhaps?

In the interests of fairness and balance, I assume they're happening already!

When I finally get the Eco-Hamlets social enterprise up and running, I look forward to regular meetings with them too, to help formulate policy. I would expect everything we discuss to be made public.

[biffvernon]

Hmmm....

As befits the UK's head of fracking, Cuadrilla boss and government employee Lord Browne is busy raising cash to finance an unconventional gas boom across the UK.

With more than 60% of the country set to be drilled, Browne has recognised there is a problem: this is going to cost rather a lot of money. Of course you can make money from providing finance to people, and to both benefit from the lending, investing - as well as the drilling - Browne has recently launched a new venture: Riverstone Energy (RE). http://frack-off.org.uk/wordpress/wp-co ... rstone.pdf

The drive to industrialise the UK countryside for new forms of gas is going to need lots of up-front cash to pay for licenses and equipment. And you only get a payback after you've spent a ton of dosh in the first place: Cuadrilla, for example, have so far spent more than 100m, are 2.5 years behind schedule and have precious little to show for it.

Other UK drillers are similarly struggling. Scots driller Dart Energy is desperately selling anything it owns to stay afloat after the Airth community blocked its drilling plans. West Country driller UK Methane similarly recently lost an investment deal (apparently due to 'contractual differences'); even the UK government's Enterprise Finance Guarantee appears to be pulling out of all things fracking http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/ ... e.21955773

Enter Browne. RE is to raise at least £500m to remedy this lack http://frack-off.org.uk/wordpress/wp-co ... rstone.pdf . That could well be an underestimate. The last Riverstone fund (portentously named Riverstone Global Energy and Power Fund V) raised more than $7bn.

The Financial Times reckons that RE is to be floated on the stock market so that the likes of pension funds and individual investors can put their money in. Investment bankers Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are said to be preparing the groundwork for a public launch.

Yet with extensive contacts in finance and a history of raising money through 'private equity' (i.e. large institutions and wealthy individuals), why is Browne considering going to the stock market, with its associated high cost and heavy regulatory burden?

The fracking Czar is attempting something very subtle here. By offering city institutions and individuals a chance to invest in fracking and its associated technologies, Browne is attempting to build public support behind his gas schemes. At present the City and the public won't benefit at all from the UK's fracking mania. If they can invest in it, Browne is thinking, then it's more likely they'll throw their support behind it.

As the befits the man who sits on the fracking throne, Browne last month announced he'd invest 'whatever it takes' to get Cuadrilla drilling. That was perhaps a little blunt. Now Browne has revealed his cards: Riverstone Energy will be the frackers' new - publicly financed - banker.

A Ponzi scheme is where you make your money from the flow of ever more investor cash but you do a runner before they discover there's no return to be made from the core business.

[JohnB]

Meanwhile, some better news from the Fracking Hell (UK) Facebook group:

Our member, Steve Hedley, Assistant General Secretary of RMT has made this announcement:

"RMT(The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers) London Transport Regional Council have just passed a motion opposing fracking and calling for a green ban on fracking and all associated work, this is in effect a call to boycott it."

Green bans have apparently worked well in Australia, where union members have refused to work on building projects that harm the environment.

[RenewableCandy]

Hmmm....

As befits the UK's head of fracking, Cuadrilla boss and government employee Lord Browne is busy raising cash to finance an unconventional gas boom across the UK.

With more than 60% of the country set to be drilled, Browne has recognised there is a problem: this is going to cost rather a lot of money. Of course you can make money from providing finance to people, and to both benefit from the lending, investing - as well as the drilling - Browne has recently launched a new venture: Riverstone Energy (RE). http://frack-off.org.uk/wordpress/wp-co ... rstone.pdf

The drive to industrialise the UK countryside for new forms of gas is going to need lots of up-front cash to pay for licenses and equipment. And you only get a payback after you've spent a ton of dosh in the first place: Cuadrilla, for example, have so far spent more than 100m, are 2.5 years behind schedule and have precious little to show for it.

Other UK drillers are similarly struggling. Scots driller Dart Energy is desperately selling anything it owns to stay afloat after the Airth community blocked its drilling plans. West Country driller UK Methane similarly recently lost an investment deal (apparently due to 'contractual differences'); even the UK government's Enterprise Finance Guarantee appears to be pulling out of all things fracking http://www.heraldscotland.com/business/ ... e.21955773

Enter Browne. RE is to raise at least £500m to remedy this lack http://frack-off.org.uk/wordpress/wp-co ... rstone.pdf . That could well be an underestimate. The last Riverstone fund (portentously named Riverstone Global Energy and Power Fund V) raised more than $7bn.

The Financial Times reckons that RE is to be floated on the stock market so that the likes of pension funds and individual investors can put their money in. Investment bankers Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are said to be preparing the groundwork for a public launch.

Yet with extensive contacts in finance and a history of raising money through 'private equity' (i.e. large institutions and wealthy individuals), why is Browne considering going to the stock market, with its associated high cost and heavy regulatory burden?

The fracking Czar is attempting something very subtle here. By offering city institutions and individuals a chance to invest in fracking and its associated technologies, Browne is attempting to build public support behind his gas schemes. At present the City and the public won't benefit at all from the UK's fracking mania. If they can invest in it, Browne is thinking, then it's more likely they'll throw their support behind it.

As the befits the man who sits on the fracking throne, Browne last month announced he'd invest 'whatever it takes' to get Cuadrilla drilling. That was perhaps a little blunt. Now Browne has revealed his cards: Riverstone Energy will be the frackers' new - publicly financed - banker.

A Ponzi scheme is where you make your money from the flow of ever more investor cash but you do a runner before they discover there's no return to be made from the core business.

It'd be a great idea for those of us who have them to write to the custodians of our pensions and alert them to this!

[mobbsey]

Oh no, not so! In Lincolnshire the planning permissions granted at Laughton and applied for at Biscathorpe are for conventional oil BUT the company (Egdon Resources) is interested in the gas-rich shale of the Bowland-Hodder Formation

Just because they're booking the reserve on their balance sheet doesn't mean they'll ever produce it.

One of the biggest problems for the industry in Britain today isn't protesters, it's equipment. There are, I've been told, only three rigs in Britain that can drill horizontal wells. For the whole industry to take of in Britain we need at least fifty, and no one is putting up the finance to do that right now. Unless each field operator can drill and complete a well every 2 or 3 weeks, the unconventional gas industry in Britain will never take off (which is why there's such a lobby behind coal gasification -- it doesn't require so much up-front capital)

The significance of Centrica buying into Cuadrilla is that that they have the capital to finance those new drilling rigs. None of the other players, like Egdon, has the money (£20-£30 million per drilling outfit) to put up to create the infrastructure to exploit what they're booking on their balance sheets.

[biffvernon]

Yes, I'm sure you're right.